Saturday, June 14, 2008

Update on the LDS FamilySearch IndexingAs FamilySearch indexing continues to hit milestones, volunteers using the Universal Data Entry (UDE) continue to extract a large number of names from records around the world. At the beginning of May, 2008, FamilySearch indexing hit two significant milestones. There now are over 140,000 registered volunteers who have indexed over 50 million names so far this year. By contrast, in the first four months of last year, just 21 million names had been indexed. Last year, extractors worked with about fifteen languages, including Russian, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Portuguese, Finnish, Polish, Latin, Hawaiian, and Samoan. Batches in these languages are not currently available through FamilySearch indexing, but may be available soon.

The LDS Granite Mountain Records Vault (GMRV)There are approximately 2.5 million rolls of microfilm and 1 million microfiche contained in the LDS Granite Mountain Records Vault, equaling about three billion pages of genealogical records. This collection is estimated to be 232 times the amount of the print holdings of the Library of Congress.